Lourdes' 5th straight D-4 title achieved with win over Sayre

Charlie Roth/Staff Photo
Bailey Trell, left, jumps into the arms of Nikki Komara after Lourdes beat Sayre to win the District 4 Class A girls basketball title for the fifth straight year.

Lourdes Regional's Nikki Komara (23) goes high in the air to pull down a cross-court pass as Sayre's Kelly Villante (10) defends during District 4 Class A championship action Saturday at Montoursville.

It makes the accomplishment - sealed with a 37-27 victory - that much more special.

"It all starts with dedicated young ladies who play together," Lourdes coach Mike Klembara said. "They're intelligent young ladies who work hard in the offseason, work hard in the classroom.

"This doesn't happen overnight."

In the championship game, Lourdes trailed only after Sayre's Elyse Skerpon scored the game's opening points on a layup inside the first minute. The Raiders, however, weren't able totally put away the top-seeded Redskins until the final two-and-a-half minutes of the game when they scored six straight points to push the final margin into double digits.

They (Sayre) were the number one seed. They're a good team," Klembara said. "It's a tribute to the kind of league we're in that it prepares us to play this kind of game."

The Raiders led by six at the end of a quarter, bumped that to ten by the half, then fought off a couple Sayre runs in the second half.

By the end of the third, the Redskins cut that

to five, before Lourdes pushed it back up to 10 with five straight points to start the third.

By the middle of the fourth quarter, the Redskins again cut into the lead when consecutive 3-pointers from Kelly Villante and Molly Robinson made it 31-27 with 3 minutes, 50 second left.

"We led all the way," Klembara said. "But we knew they would make a couple runs.

"We were able to respond. This is a great bunch of girls."

It was that final Lourdes response, down the stretch, that ultimately made the difference.

Inside the final 2:23 of the game, after the Redskins cut the Raiders advantage to four, Lourdes knocked down four of six free throws, and added a jumper from Rachel Schultz.

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